IN THE RIVER IS NOW AVAILABLE (8/7/17)

Very excited to announce a summertime surprise from myself and Lazy Fascist Press:

My brand new book IN THE RIVER is now available!

I left my heart on the page writing this, and I think it’s my most horrific and beautiful work. I hope that those who read it will feel the same.

Here’s the publisher’s rundown:

“An intensely moving tale of survival and madness along the river's edge. A father and son fishing lesson becomes a nightmarish voyage to the sea in this visionary testament to the lengths we will go for those we love.”

IN THE RIVER

Available in print and digital editions. Cover by Matthew Revert.

100% of my first month’s royalties from the book will be donated to Portland Homeless Family Solutions to aid them in the difficult work of helping families with children find safety and security during times of struggle.

Best wishes,

JRJ

Official Cave Mode Announcement! (6/8/17)

Did this once before while working on SKULLCRACK and it's become apparent I should do it now to honor my obligations on this next novel. So, Cave Mode:

BLURBS―Somehow ended up with 15 manuscripts for potential blurbing in 2017. My normal policy is 2 per year (the thinking being if you only do a handful, folks don't write you off as a blurb mill [and also I want some time to read that old Questlove book!]). So, going back to that policy in 2018, and closed to new manuscripts until Q2 of next year.

EDITING―I don't do that in general, but David Osborne damn sure does, and I can vouch for his work.

CONS―Not going, even if it's in town. Might hit Bizarrocon, as my novel should be done by then (and it's their 10 year anniversary and that's the only time I ever see Cameron Pierce).

READINGS―As I am expected at my own Powell's reading on June 22nd, I'll do my best to show for that one. Other than that I'll be in my cave (and besides, my kid has an amazing knack for giving me some terrible illness right as my favorite authors come through town--it's a weird curse at this point).

SOCIAL MEDIA―Diminished presence for a while, except for one exciting secret thing.

ACTUAL SOCIAL LIFE―That's cute. Will be going on some playdates for the kid, though, so if anybody wants to hang with me at OMSI, holler.

Cheers!

JRJ

ENTROPY IN BLOOM IS NOW AVAILABLE!

Named one of the most anticipated books of 2017 by LitReactor and Big Other and one of the Science Fiction & Fantasy Books Everyone Will Be Talking About by Kirkus/Black Gate.

Includes "When Susurrus Stirs," the basis for the award-winning motion picture of the same name. Features an Introduction by Brian Evenson.

"Johnson is a master of mood, seamlessly combining the literary with the grotesque. Horror fans will find much to chew on, and these stories will certainly reach a wider audience. Johnson deserves to be a household name, as this superb collection makes clear."―Publishers Weekly (starred review)

Available in hardcover for the first time, a collection of cult sensation Jeremy Robert Johnson's best and most bizarre short fiction, including a brand-new, never-before-published novella.

For more than a decade, Jeremy Robert Johnson has been bubbling under the surface of both literary and genre fiction. His short stories present a brilliantly dark and audaciously weird realm where cosmic nightmares collide with all-too-human characters and apocalypses of all shapes and sizes loom ominously. In "Persistence Hunting," a lonely distance runner is seduced into a brutal life of crime with an ever-narrowing path for escape. In "When Susurrus Stirs," an unlucky pacifist must stop a horrifying parasite from turning his body into a sentient hive. Running through all of Johnson's work is a hallucinatory vision and deeply-felt empathy, earning the author a reputation as one of today's most daring and thrilling writers.

Featuring the best of his independently-published short fiction, as well as an exclusive, never-before-published novella "The Sleep of Judges"―where a father's fight against the denizens of a drug den becomes a mind-bending suburban nightmare―Entropy in Bloom is a perfect compendium for avid fans and an ideal entry point for adventurous readers seeking the humor, heartbreak, and terror of JRJ's strange new worlds.

"A perfect place to get acquainted with one of the darkest stars in the genre...Johnson captures humanity's absurdity, our grotesqueries, sometimes our triumphs, all the while pushing past the limits of reality, transforming it into something dark, and surreal, and unforgettable."
―B&N Sci-Fi & Fantasy Blog

"ENTROPY IN BLOOM is an instant classic, a carefully curated manifesto whose main goal is to tell the world one of the brightest stars in indie lit is now too brilliant to remain hidden...This collection should turn him into the writer everyone is talking about. These fifteen stories and one novella show a powerful imagination, a great talent for storytelling, writing chops that allow him to tackle any genre, and a flowing, dynamic voice that, if Johnson were a singer, would extend to an impressive eight octaves."
―Electric Literature

"Surreal, visceral, and frequently unsettling...One more descriptor, while we're at it: highly entertaining. Johnson brings a pulpy urgency to the page, which blends neatly with the frequently heady concepts that he utilizes in his fiction. [ENTROPY IN BLOOM]'s a fine primer to his work, which encompasses everything from stories of pernicious terrors working their way into the world to taut crime fiction to insightful character studies."
―Tor.com

"Exciting, unpredictable, and feels slightly dangerous...free of the boundaries of conventional literature in ways you can't quite imagine. ENTROPY IN BLOOM is emotionally challenging, unpredictable and thoroughly original. I cannot say it enough: I had a great time with this book." ―Dead End Follies

"Showcases the best of the worst of Jeremy Robert Johnson. And by worst, I mean most gut-churning and nightmare inducing...Perfectly paced and extremely creepy...will leave you pondering the deeper meaning of random acts of violence for days to come. Enjoy?"
―LitReactor

"With ENTROPY IN BLOOM, Jeremy Robert Johnson continues to deliver the very best in short fiction...original ideas, compellingly realistic characters, wonderfully vivid language."
―This is Horror

"These stories can be uncomfortable, difficult, unflinching, but they're also always entertaining. Johnson writes with an energy that propels you through some very dark spaces indeed and into something profoundly unsettling but nonetheless human."
―Brian Evenson, author of A Collapse of Horses

"ENTROPY IN BLOOM crackles with weirdness, style, wit, a befittingly oddball sense of humanity, and a misshapen dark heart. I loved every damn story."
―Paul Tremblay, author of A Head Full of Ghosts and Disappearance at Devil's Rock

"Reading Johnson, you feel you are in the grip of an immensely powerful, possibly malevolent, but fiercely intelligent mind. Beware! (But enjoy--and trust me, you will.)"
―Nick Cutter, author of The Troop

"I've seen the future and it's bizarre, it's beautifully berserk, it's Jeremy Robert Johnson."
―Stephen Graham Jones, author of Mongrels

Available now wherever books are sold!

THE END OF A VERY SMALL AND VERY STRANGE ERA (2/17/17)

Swallowdown Press will end its publishing run as of March 31st, 2017, eleven years after the release of its first titles.

During its (wildly intermittent) production period Swallowdown Press was responsible for the publication of nine novels. Five of these were nominated for the coveted Wonderland Award and four of them actually won. Collectively these books have sold over 15,000 copies and have served to expand the scope of the Bizarro fiction canon (while also finding inroads with discerning Horror and Crime readers looking for a little weirdness in the mix).

The original tagline for Swallowdown Press was “Brilliant Bizarro Books” and I stand by that. From the almost-alien, Lynchian Siberia of J David Osborne’s BY THE TIME WE LEAVE HERE, WE’LL BE FRIENDS to the darkly beautiful poetry of Forrest Armstrong’s THE DEADHEART SHELTERS to the mind-bending, revelatory shorts of Cody Goodfellow’s SILENT WEAPONS FOR QUIET WARS, all were books which showed how deeply affecting literature could be when run through their author’s warped and singular imaginations.

I feel immensely privileged and proud to have had a small hand in introducing these books to the world. I’m also grateful to the artists—Alex Pardee, Alan M. Clark, Matthew Revert, Mike Dubisch, Dana Terrace, and Nick Gucker—who made our books look as amazing and dynamic as possible. And a great debt is owed to Carlton Mellick III and Cameron Pierce who did most of the actual book design (both cover and interior) for the Friend Price of Pizza and Beer.

For those wondering “Why?”: Swallowdown Press is solvent—we’ve paid all royalties religiously since our first pub date. All of our titles have earned out and are profitable and BY THE TIME and SILENT WEAPONS are certified hits by any small press standard. And I’m still a true believer when it comes to the power and potential of Bizarro fiction.

All that being said, time has compressed for me a great deal since becoming and fully devoting myself to being a father. Swallowdown has been on a production hiatus for over five years now, and I’ve realized that I’m kidding myself when I think it may return. In its absence presses like Lazy Fascist and Broken River and King Shot and Fungasm have published most of the books I would have wanted to put out anyway. The aesthetic I loved for Swallowdown is being served—and served better—by these wonderful publishers.

Beyond that, the unexpected success of SKULLCRACK CITY has presented me with some opportunities that I’m now (legally/contractually) bound to pursue, and these are drawing my attention away from the press in a way that’s unfair to the authors. So at this point I’d rather the rights revert to these folks so that they might find further opportunities for their very fine work. I can’t give details yet, but I can assure you that many of the Swallowdown books will be re-appearing in the near future.

So, for those interested in collecting or checking out the Swallowdown Press catalog before it’s gone, here is a list of titles which will no longer be available as of April 1, 2017:

WE LIVE INSIDE YOU by Jeremy Robert Johnson (print edition only, digital will remain available)

SIREN PROMISED by Alan M. Clark and Jeremy Robert Johnson (print edition only, superior digital version with full-color art already available from IFD Publishing)

THE DEADHEART SHELTERS by Forrest Armstrong (print/digital)

BY THE TIME WE LEAVE HERE, WE’LL BE FRIENDS by J. David Osborne (print/digital)

LOW DOWN DEATH RIGHT EASY by J. David Osborne (print/digital)

SILENT WEAPONS FOR QUIET WARS by Cody Goodfellow (print/digital)

PERFECT UNION by Cody Goodfellow (print/digital)

ALL-MONSTER ACTION! By Cody Goodfellow (print/digital)

ALSO OF NOTE:

Eraserhead Press’ print edition of ANGEL DUST APOCALYPSE will also be going Out of Print around this same time.

FURTHER EXPLANATION:

In April 2017 Night Shade Press will be releasing ENTROPY IN BLOOM in both hardcover and digital editions (with a trade paperback to follow in October 2017)! ENTROPY IN BLOOM not only collects the absolute best short stories from ANGEL DUST and WE LIVE, but also includes a brand new, never-before-published 25,000 word novella titled “The Sleep of Judges” (which feels like my best work to date [though the new stuff always does]).

ENTROPY IN BLOOM is the 4K Criterion Collector’s Edition Blu-Ray of my short work. It’s beautifully designed, deeply fine-tuned, and chock-full of extra features including an outstanding Introduction from the always amazing Brian Evenson. Going forward, I would tell any reader interested in my short fiction that ENTROPY IN BLOOM is 100% the book to pick up. As such, it is now going to become the sole collection available in print.

For those folks interested in the weird/experimental deep cuts, I am going to leave the very inexpensive Kindle versions of WE LIVE and ANGEL DUST on the market. To extend the film metaphor, there will still be a way to access my earliest work via these Bootleg VHS copies. So if you really need not one but three stories of Rave Horror or you dig Kenny Loggins jokes, you can still get that stuff for now.

Definitely some big changes, and there’s always more to be announced, but for now I just want to say:

Thank you for reading Swallowdown Press books! I hope you had as much fun experiencing them as we had creating them!

Best wishes,

JRJ

The SDP crew at Bizarrocon 2011

WASHINGTON POST REVIEW, Powell's Reading, And More!

SKULLCRACK CITY has been out for a month, and it's been a crazy 30 days. I'm trying to compile all the post-release propaganda and news here:

First, SC received a glowing review in THE WASHINGTON POST. Having the novel called "Genre-bending [...] haunting and humorous." alongside a review of the new Gaiman collection felt like a coup/minor miracle.

Second, my favorite bookstore on earth (Powell's) is now carrying SC in their Small Press Featured section.

AND, I've been invited to read at Powell's Hawthorne on Thursday, May 14th at 7:30pm. This will be my first time having a solo appearance at Powell's, and I still need to talk to their Event Coordinator about their policies regarding nudity, fake blood, and Cormac McCarthy jokes, but it should be a great time!

Third, two different podcasts suffered lapses in judgment, so you can listen to my jibber-jabber and angelic singing voice at both Books and Booze and Surreal Sermons. At 10:54 I introduce an idea that changes everything for modern society. At 43:44 you won't believe how great my impersonation of Jimmy Stewart sounds. Or none of that happens. But both are audible!

Fourth, my first post-SKULLCRACK print interview is live over at Entropy Mag. I finally answer the question, "Briefs or a carefully smashed-and-glued taco?" It's very provocative stuff!

Fifth, LITREACTOR has chosen SKULLCRACK CITY as their April '14 Book Club Selection. I'll be joining the conversation, and all participants will be entered in a contest to win a very rare signed (and error-riddled and goonie-looking) ARC of SC. If you enjoyed the book (or hated it) please join us!

Sixth, an exclamation!

Seventh, here's the SKULLCRACK Hype Train Round-Up Chugging On Through!

"Skullcrack City's blend of genres, breakneck pacing, brutality, and dashes of philosophy and social critique serve to cement Johnson as one of the most exciting voices in contemporary fiction. Skullcrack City is a smart, incredibly well-researched, and painfully plausible look at our immediate future. Jeremy Robert Johnson's work has always tested the limits of both genre and literary fiction and this novel proves that there's still new ground to tread and that he's already on it."--BOOKSLUT

"Fucking incredibly well written and really entertaining the whole time. Wholly original--it's a gem. Without question a FIVE STAR book."--BOOKED

"This book is a little bit science fiction, a little bit horror, a little bit everything really, with a dark, literary angle throughout. It's a must for fans of body horror, intricate conspiracies, David Wong/Don Coscarelli's John Dies at the End, or just plain great story-telling."--HORROR NEWS

"Skullcrack City is, by my estimation, a perfect book. Jeremy Robert Johnson is a novelist whose head is so full of ideas and the purest essence of Story that the book practically explodes when you open it. Moving at a breakneck speed, Skullcrack City never lets up."--THE PULP CHRONICLER

"[T]his book is singularly original. Certainly, it takes cues from Philip K. Dick and William Burroughs. It feels like it could be put on a shelf next to Warren Ellis' Supergod, Grant Morrison's The Invisibles and The Filth, and David Wong's John Dies at the End and be perfectly at home there. Despite its bleak setting and tormented characters, this book is very, very funny. And ultimately, it is a book about hope, and love, and redemption, and the human will to adapt and survive despite insurmountable odds."--INTERNAL SHIRT

"This book is like nothing else you have ever read... If forced me I would say it felt like a way weirder take on Carpenter's They Live if William Burroughs and Clive Barker worked on the script and Cronenberg directed."--POSTCARDS FROM A DYING WORLD

Big thanks to everybody who's been checking this thing out or even advocating on behalf of its craziness. It's been a lovely launch and I truly appreciate all the positive energy people have put into the book over the last month.

Cheers,

JRJ

SKULLCRACK CITY IS FINALLY AVAILABLE!

I'm very excited to announce that SKULLCRACK CITY is finally available from Lazy Fascist Press (with an amazing cover from Jeff Soto)! Sure, it took nine years from its announcement to be released, survived a publisher shake-up, and prompted a visit from the FBI, but now, at last, it's here and it's real, and you can finally read the crazy thing. I hope you dig it.

Here's the print version. And the Kindle.

And here's some early buzz on the thing:

"A nightmarish yet hilarious journey. You're in for an entirely unpredictable ride, the tale spinning ludicrously out of control as the hero uncovers layer after grotesque layer of a vast macabre conspiracy. Skullcrack City is original, utterly insane, and a shitload of fun.”—DAVID WONG, author of John Dies at the End

“Skullcrack City messes with your mind the way William Burroughs or a bellyful of hallucinogens will do. I’m a longtime fan of Johnson. A master of derangement, he’s been bringing it for years. This time, though, it’s different. He’s burst into the clear and is taking seven-league strides across the literary landscape.”—LAIRD BARRON, author of The Beautiful Thing That Awaits Us All

“Skullcrack City’s blend of genres, breakneck pacing, brutality, and dashes of philosophy and social critique serve to cement Johnson as one of the most exciting voices in contemporary fiction. Skullcrack City is a smart, incredibly well-researched, and painfully plausible look at our immediate future. Jeremy Robert Johnson's work has always tested the limits of both genre and literary fiction and this novel proves that there's still new ground to tread and that he's already on it.”—BOOKSLUT

SKULLCRACK CITY IN 2014 & "ALL-MONSTER ACTION!" WINS WONDERLAND!

I'm thrilled to announce that my novel SKULLCRACK CITY has been acquired by Permuted Press (with a likely release date of Winter 2014)!

I've been watching Permuted since Jacob started the ball rolling, from their early success with JOHN DIES AT THE END to their more recent Peter Clines blockbusters EX-HEROES and 14. After a long conversation with Anthony Ziccardi (formerly with Simon and Schuster and Random House), I'm very excited about the direction Permuted is heading, and proud to be a part of their expanding empire.

SKULLCRACK CITY may well be the strangest Permuted book since JOHN DIES. Set in the crumbling Post-Yesterday world first featured in short story "The League of Zeroes," SKULLCRACK CITY is a genre-jumping madhouse featuring crime, conspiracy, truly weird sex, experimental surgery, cursed pharmaceuticals, and--in true Permuted fashion--a terrifying new type of brain-muncher eager to end humankind as we know it.

There's also a turtle.

SKULLCRACK CITY, 2014.

CONGRATULATIONS to 2012 Wonderland Award Winner Cody Goodfellow (and master artists Nick Gucker and Mike Dubisch). ALL-MONSTER ACTION! picked up the Best Collection award at the Ballroom Banquet during the 2013 BizarroCon, and I couldn't be happier about it. It's an inventive, brilliant beast of a book, and Cody and his cabal of artists made something truly unique. It was wonderful to see it honored.

Cheers,

JRJ

THE JRJ SAMPLER SERIES IS NOW AVAILABLE!

The JRJ Sampler Series is now available for Kindle in all of its ultra-cheap ($0.99 each) digital glory.

If ANGEL DUST APOCALYPSE and WE LIVE INSIDE YOU are a convoluted, over-reaching concept double-album, these things are the carefully selected radio singles.

Here are the story selections for each sampler (and I just noticed that the Lit sampler is great for people who like the letter S, hotel rooms and/or death):

DOOMSDAY VARIATIONS: THE JRJ APOCALYPSE SAMPLER
The Sharp-Dressed Man at the End of the Line
The Oarsman
Last Thoughts Drifting Down

THE COTTONY WASTELAND OF MY E.T. ELIOT BRAND WAIST-BAND:
THE JRJ BIZARRO SAMPLER
The League of Zeroes
When Susurrus Stirs
Amniotic Shock in the Last Sacred Place

HUNGRY FUCKING ANIMALS: THE JRJ CRIME SAMPLER
Persistence Hunting
Trigger Variation
Precedents

HOW TO FUCK UP EVERYTHING AND DIE ALONE: THE JRJ DRUG SAMPLER
A Number of Things Come to Mind
Dissociative Skills
Liquidation

DEAD EMPIRES AND TERRIBLE HOSTS: THE JRJ HORROR SAMPLER
Laws of Virulence
The Gravity of Benham Falls
Working At Home

ENTROPY IN BLOOM: THE JRJ LITERARY SAMPLER
Swimming in the House of the Sea
Snowfall
States of Glass

Now off to write a novel.

Cheers,

JRJ

LOW DOWN DEATH RIGHT EASY, Powell's Reading, and New Books on Kindle!

LOW DOWN DEATH RIGHT EASY, the new novel from Wonderland Award Winning author J. David Osborne, is now available!

"It's about meth, fishing, trash American culture and young adult despair. Imagine a Raymond Carver or Jim Thompson for the text message age and that would only begin to get it."--KRIS SAKNUSSEMM, author of Reverend America

Trapped in a rural Oklahoma town fueled by meth and doused in codeine, Arlo Clancy has made it his life's goal to keep his troubled younger brother, Sepp, out of prison. Poverty and the lure of easy drug money were pressure enough, before a gruesome discovery beneath the waters of their favorite fishing hole sent their lives into a tailspin.

Torn by cowardice and conscience, the brothers make a fateful decision which will bring them ever-closer to Danny Ames--a vicious enforcer for the local meth trade--and a nightmare world where their only chance of escape might be...

LOW DOWN DEATH RIGHT EASY

"Sometimes mysterious, sometimes vicious, and always engaging, LOW DOWN DEATH RIGHT EASY is a unique take on the crime novel that will satisfy readers who like their fiction as murky as a river after heavy rains. Here's a good way to describe J. David Osborne: Daniel Woodrell, James Ellroy, and Cormac McCarthy all wrapped into one, stripped to the bones, and given a new voice."--OUT OF THE GUTTER

"A gritty tapestry of subversive drama the likes of which I'd compare to Harmony Korine's Gummo packed in with the terse lines of Bukowski."--MICHAEL J. SEIDLINGER, author of My Pet Serial Killer and The Sky Conducting

"If you're looking for something more than just blood and guns and meth, you need to get this book immediately. Osborne has an innate talent more dangerous than a trunk full of C4. To give some sort of visual, take one of James Sallis' Spartan scenes, lock in it a single-wide with a bag of crystal and a light bulb then rip out the air conditioner and check back in a week. LOW DOWN DEATH RIGHT EASY creates sensations that haunt you long after you've started your next book."--SPINETINGLER

"LOW DOWN DEATH RIGHT EASY is working class fiction at its best. It reeks of desperation, busted dreams, and hard times. But mostly, it reeks of literary talent. Whatever J. David Osborne writes, I'm reading. And you'd better too."--BENJAMIN WHITMER, author of Pike and co-author of Satan is Real: The Ballad of the Louvin Brothers

"J. David Osborne holds a literary style distinctive enough to raise his work above the waterline of contemporary fiction. LOW DOWN DEATH RIGHT EASY challenges and hurts and mystifies its readers. The weave of characters is stunning. Intricate storylines cross and worm through each other to form a dense and powerful mystery."--MANARCHY MAGAZINE

"In LOW DOWN DEATH RIGHT EASY, Osborne reaches out into the scabrous hinterlands of landlocked nowhere to unveil an intertwined collection of reluctant dreamers and three time losers, all trying to get by while navigating rusted out acres of convenience store ice heads, run down bars, and greasy doublewides. Strange, brutal, yet disturbingly familiar, this is the sort of story you can taste on the back of your tongue, and makes you appreciate every last clean and hopeful thing you have in your life."--DARK INTENT

"A highly talented new author. Osborne is one to watch."--BLOODY-DISGUSTING.COM

Get it now at Amazon, Amazon.co.uk, Amazon.ca.

For Kindle.

Great reviews at OUT OF THE GUTTER, MANARCHY, SPINETINGLER, and BOOKED.

An excerpt at MANARCHY.

Also, if any Portland readers are interested, Powell's should have copies of LDDRE by the end of this week.

And for people on the East coast, J. David will be doing a reading from LDDRE this Monday, March 11th, in New York, along with Sam Pink, Scott McClanahan, and Cameron Pierce. Here are the details at TIME OUT NEW YORK.

Also, EXTINCTION JOURNALS and ALL-MONSTER ACTION! are now available for Kindle!

The newly revised 2012 digital edition of EXTINCTION JOURNALS includes "The Sharp-Dressed Man at the End of the Line," the classic short story explaining the origin of the world's weirdest post-nuke survivor.

The digital edition of ALL-MONSTER ACTION! includes bonus short story "Wet Nurse" as well as "We Need to Make Things More Repulsive: The Early Sketches of Nick Gucker"!

POWELL'S READING:
This Monday, March 18th, 2013 I'll be reading at Powell's City of Books on Burnside as part of their annual SMALLPRESSAPALOOZA event. Since my readings tend to run "blue" I've got the late night spot at 9:45pm. Should be great fun.

Cheers,

JRJ

JUST IN TIME FOR THE END OF THE WORLD (OR CHRISTMAS, WHICH WILL PROBABLY HAPPEN FIRST)!

ANGEL DUST APOCALYPSE is finally available for the Kindle, in a special Author’s Preferred Edition not available in any other format!

This hi-def transfer of the cult classic has been fully revised and updated and features 20,000 words of new digital-only content including:

-A Note About This Author’s Preferred Edition by Me

-An Amazing Introduction by Stephen Graham Jones

-And new section "The Fallout: Bonus Material of Suspect Value" which contains early, entirely out-of-control interviews with CEMETERY DANCE magazine and THE MEAT SOCKET, as well as "JUST THE WORST THING EVER: A TERRIBLE STORY YOU SHOULDN’T READ (WITH WRITER’S COMMENTARY)" and "A REAL BATCH OF NETWORK PITCHES FOR SHOWS WHICH YOU WILL PROBABLY NOT BE SEEING ANYTIME SOON."

I'm pretty excited for people to check this out. It's priced crazy cheap ($2.99) for the holidays and to say thanks for all the support and love the book has received in the past.

 

Happy Holidays!

JRJ

WE LIVE INSIDE YOU WINS 2011 WONDERLAND AWARD!

Very excited and happy to announce that WE LIVE INSIDE YOU won The 2011 Wonderland Book Award for Best Collection at this weekend's BizarroCon.

It was an honor to be counted among the nominees for such a strong and strange year, and I'm still a bit shocked to see the award sitting on my desk.

 

I've also noticed that everyone who picks it up almost instantly comments, "You could really beat someone to death with this thing."

It's the most beautiful murderous bludgeon I've ever held. THANK YOU (SO MUCH) to the readers and the Bizarro Con family for a wonderfully unforgettable event and year!

 

Cheers,

JRJ

BOOKS AND BOOZE INTERVIEW & SWALLOWDOWN RE-DESIGN

Gathered some Evan Williams, an Apocalypse IPA, and my cell phone last week for a very enjoyable interview for the BOOKS AND BOOZE podcast.

Per the site: "In Books and Booze episode 16 we sit down with Jeremy Robert Johnson to talk about good beer, good bourbon, experimental writing, and NaNoWriMo. We talk about our favorite stories from We Live Inside You and Jeremy serenades us with the hits of the Doobie Brothers."

Also, the Swallowdown Press website has just undergone a masterful re-design courtesy of Presidential Net Aesthetician Matthew Revert.

Best,

JRJ

21C Magazine Interview

“Ashley Crawford talks with Jeremy Robert Johnson about Bizarro, David Cronenberg, parasites and, inevitably, the end of the world.”

I've been interviewed for 21C Magazine, whose prior subjects have included folks like Burroughs, Gibson, Shirley, Ballard, Acker, Brian Evenson, Mark Z. Danielewski, and Jonathan Lethem. You can click on the logo above to jump to the sprawling Q&A.

ALL-MONSTER ACTION! Now Available!

Coming soon from Swallowdown Press-- ALL-MONSTER ACTION! by Cody Goodfellow, featuring art from Mike Dubisch (cover and interiors) and Nick Gucker (interiors):

“A tour-de-force! Goodfellow's latest is his best yet. Compulsive, breakneck reading!” —BRIAN KEENE, author of The Rising and Ghoul

IT'S THEIR WORLD... NOW GET THE FUCK OFF!

Whether on the sun-kissed beaches of a nameless South Pacific paradise or in the suffocating dungeons of retail Hell, the misfits of evolution and mistakes of misbegotten science are battling, breeding, and feeding. And they're looking at you...

COMING ATTRACTIONS!

They came seeking cheap thrills and interspecies recreational sex, but they reaped a whirlwind of clusterfuckery when they toyed with the unspeakable forces of monster lust. From the idyllic nostalgia of WW2 to the thoroughly bat-shit future, witness the wages of sin and mutation as you've never seen them before (unless you read them previously in the periodicals or anthologies in which they first appeared)!

OUR MAIN FEATURE!

The world gave him a blank check and a demand: Create giant monsters to fight our wars. But Dr. Otaku was not satisfied with mere chaos and mass destruction.... Even as his subversively delicious kaiju creatures undermined the very fabric of American life, he hatched a scheme to animate the cities themselves and inaugurate a new dark age of mega-monster abominations who would finally give humanity the ass-whipping it deserved. Now only one man, riding inside the skull of a much larger man, stands between us and the planet-devastating madness of...

ALL-MONSTER ACTION!

“ALL-MONSTER ACTION! is hilarious, action-packed, and way too much fun. Over-the-top and wild! Highly recommended.” — JONATHAN MABERRY, New York Times Bestselling author of Dust & Decay and Assassin’s Code

“This is your chance. You only think you're hip—but you haven't read this Cody Goodfellow book, so you're not yet. Now you can be hip, and read something crazy entertaining too. You can't go wrong, man, I'm telling you. You’ve got to read this thing. I mean, if a book rocks, it rocks, that's all.” —JOHN SHIRLEY, author of A Song Called Youth

“Cody Goodfellow's writing etches itself inside your eyelids and chases your brain back into the dark corners where you can't escape. ALL-MONSTER ACTION! has more high concepts in a paragraph than a whole summer of blockbusters: a mad scientist who's passed on like the flu; biotech mutants harvested for fun and profit; and a giant monster arms race that ends in a showdown on the moon. This book is a human's-eye view of the future coming down hard on us, like a Tokyo resident gazing up at the sky and seeing only the outline of a giant foot.” —CHRISTOPHER FARNSWORTH, author of Blood Oath and The President's Vampire

"ALL-MONSTER ACTION! is a dirty bomb right to the cerebral cortex—it's sharp, smart, scary, scarring, sexy and brutally funny. And like any good bomb, it's got specific targets in mind: Genre and gender, racism, colonialism, ageism and classism. ALL-MONSTER ACTION! demonstrates again that Cody Goodfellow is some kind of mad-ass genius.” —LISA MORTON, author of The Castle of Los Angeles and Monsters of L.A. and Four-Time Winner of the Bram Stoker Award

“One of the most unique and creative works I've ever read. The author is quite obviously insane, but like Colonel Kurtz, he's got a plan. ALL-MONSTER ACTION! is packed with wild, driving energy that carries the reader along like an out-of-control Disney ride. Cody Goodfellow combines genres and crazed pop-cult tropes with finesse and style. Old Mr. Yeats kept bitchin’ about ‘the centre cannot hold.’ Bullshit. With ALL-MONSTER ACTION! Cody Goodfellow proves he can hold the center together and play lead guitar at the same time. Filled with crazed, strange characters drawn from pop-cult, z-grade cinema and zillions of comic books, the pace is frantic and the imagery often makes you laugh while you cringe. What impresses me most with ALL-MONSTER ACTION! is Cody's ability to take cultural icons and clichés and turn them into a funny, intelligent, satiric story that perhaps Max Ernst would have written if he fronted Black Flag. ALL-MONSTER ACTION! made me remember those late nights as a kid, watching amazingly strange films and thrilling to every minute. Cody Goodfellow must have caught those films, too, because his fevered stories have one foot in the past and one foot in the present. Reading ALL-MONSTER ACTION! gave me the same pleasure as the first time I saw ‘The Navy vs. the Night Monsters.’ Brilliant!”—RICKY LEE GROVE, The Greatest Character Actor Ever (Army Of Darkness, Point Break, Scanner Cop) and the Pizza Delivery Man in Your Mom's Recurring Wet Dreams

This is off at the printers now and should be available within the next two weeks. I can't wait for for people to check it out. It's Swallowdown Press' craziest book, the GRAVITY'S RAINBOW of Godzilla tales. We haven't traditionally done what you'd call "fun" books, but ALL-MONSTER ACTION! manages to be as laugh-out-loud funny and exciting as it is smart and brilliantly written.

Best,

JRJ

WE LIVE INSIDE YOU is Now Available!

Available now from Jeremy Robert Johnson and Swallowdown Press (with book design by CM3 and amazing cover art by Alex Pardee):

We are within you, and we are growing. Watching. Waiting for your empires to fall. It won’t be long now.

We are the fear of death that drives you and the terrible hunger that reshapes you in its name. We are the vengeance born from senseless slaughter and the pulsing reptile desire that negates your consciousness. We are the lie on your lips, the collapsing star in your heart, and the still-warm gun in your shaking hands. The illusion of control is all we’ll allow you, and no matter what you do…

WE LIVE INSIDE YOU

“WE LIVE INSIDE YOU is fucking terrific. Jeremy Robert Johnson is dancing to a way different drummer. He loves language, he loves the edge, and he loves us people. These stories have range and style and wit. This is entertainment... and literature.”—JACK KETCHUM, author of Off Season, The Girl Next Door, and The Woman (w/Lucky McKee)

“A haunting collection from a wildly talented author, WE LIVE INSIDE YOU is composed of nineteen perfectly-wrought nightmares, every one of which will stay with you long after you've finished reading.”—PETER CRAIG, author of Hot Plastic and Blood Father, co-screenwriter of The Town

“The people populating these stories are real and vital and you WILL care, deeply, about what becomes of them... and in JRJ's harsh universe, baaaaad things happen. Often. Prepare thyself.”—CRAIG DAVIDSON, author of Rust and Bone, The Fighter, and Sarah Court

“The guy’s a genius. Reminds me of William Gibson—the dark interest in altered states of consciousness, the unrelentingly furious forward movement, and the same kind of unlimited imagination.”—BEN LOORY, author of Stories for Nighttime and Some for the Day

“Tongue-replacing isopods, brain-raping copepods and body-warping worms are far from the most insidious parasites that infest Jeremy Robert Johnson's hapless literary victims. Though the squirmy bits elegantly pioneer new frontiers of sickness, WE LIVE INSIDE YOU is at its most twisted and mordantly revelatory when it drops the body-horror metaphors and digs into the real horror of all the parasitic drives that ride us—tapeworms of greed, lust like plagues of crab lice, and the lethal heartworms of true love. So tightly written and so fluidly brutal you'll want to consume this psychosexual demolition derby in one sitting, but you'll spend the rest of the night checking yourself under a microscope.”—CODY GOODFELLOW, author of Silent Weapons for Quiet Wars and Radiant Dawn/Ravenous Dusk

“Waaaay out at the deep end of the collective unconscious—where even the bravest of brain cells fear to tread—Jeremy Robert Johnson performs stand-up comedy for the gods. And their laughter is a marvelous, terrible thing. He’s the kind of post-Lovecraftian genius berserker who makes the Great Old Ones new again. As with Clive Barker, there is no glorious mutational eruption that Johnson can’t nail directly through your gawping mind’s eye.”—JOHN SKIPP, NY Times Bestselling author of Spore (w/Cody Goodfellow) and The Bridge (w/Craig Spector)

That is all. Glad to be back. Hope everybody enjoys the new book!

JRJ

Now Available!: By the Time We Leave Here, We'll Be Friends by J. David Osborne

Available now from J. David Osborne and Swallowdown Press (with an afterword from yours truly, book design by CM3, excellent interior art from Erin Elise, and amazing wrap-around cover art from Alex Pardee):

Siberia, 1953. Stalin is dead and a once-prosperous thief named Alek Karriker is feeling the pressure. Trapped in an icy prison camp where violent criminals run the show, betrayed by his friends and his body, Karriker is surrounded by death and disorder. Bizarre Inuit shamans are issuing ever-stranger commands that he must obey. Opium is running scarce and bad magic is plentiful. Razor-tooth gangsters can smell Karriker’s blood and they plan to murder him more than once. The only option: ESCAPE.

Enlisting the aid of an aging guard, a cold-blooded killer, and a beautiful, murderous nurse, Karriker must now secure his getaway by finding a "calf": a gullible prisoner to be cannibalized when the tundra is at its most barren. As the vice grows tighter and life in the gulag becomes increasingly surreal, Karriker must hurry to find his mark and convince him...

BY THE TIME WE LEAVE HERE, WE’LL BE FRIENDS

“BY THE TIME WE LEAVE HERE, WE'LL BE FRIENDS is a David Lynchian nightmare set in a Russian gulag, where its prisoners, guards, traitors, soldiers, lovers, and demons fight for survival and their own rapidly deteriorating humanity. Osborne's debut…is paranoid, cold, brutal, haunting, mystifying (in a good way), and totally unforgettable.”—PAUL TREMBLAY, author of The Little Sleep and In the Mean Time

“[A]n opium-laced fever dream, swinging readily between the surreal and the horrifyingly, starkly real. Siberia is a place, metaphoric and literal: It's an inescapable, brutal state of mind. Give in to the voices and let this story deliver its kaleidoscopic nightmare, sly lines, and the truth of a bloody, damaged, beating, human heart.”—MONICA DRAKE, author of Clown Girl

“The only thing crueler and weirder than life in Osborne's Stalinist gulag is the afterlife. Wringing an ergot-laced harvest of agony and absurdity from the bleak Siberian tundra, BY THE TIME WE LEAVE HERE, WE’LL BE FRIENDS manages the nigh-impossible feat of making Kafka's Penal Colony look like a Sweet Valley High romance.”—CODY GOODFELLOW, author of Perfect Union, Silent Weapons for Quiet Wars, and Radiant Dawn/Ravenous Dusk

“This lyrical spatter of inspired dementia… reminds me of Celine in serious nightmare mode, and yet its brutality is quiet—gentle even. To find yourself enjoying forensic black humor scenes of disgust and revulsion is a tribute to Osborne’s writing….”—KRIS SAKNUSSEMM, author of Zanesville, Private Midnight and Enigmatic Pilot

"Like a rat in a bag of deer meat—this is BY THE TIME WE LEAVE talking—[it] scuttles around inside you as you read it, and you come to know that rat as your own heart. And it knows you back, has all along.”—STEPHEN GRAHAM JONES, author of It Came from Del Rio

I couldn't be prouder to be releasing J. David's debut. This book is fantastic.

And, if you know someone for whom cold, barren landscapes filled with surreal death presses their buttons... well, that's weird, but they would fucking love this for X-mas.

Best,

JRJ